WOMAN BELIEVED TO BE IN MEXICO SOUGHT IN 1993 DEATH OF BABY

Cold case homicide investigators are asking for the public’s help to find a baby sitter suspected of fatally abusing an infant in San Diego 20 years ago.

Police believe Maria Elvia Larios, 67, fled to Mexico. She also uses the last names Mendoza and Parra.

Larios was the baby sitter of 1-year-old Jose Shaw. The boy’s parents began to notice small scratches and bruising on the baby, but Larios was able to explain away the injuries, San Diego police said.

On March 2, 1993, Larios called 911 from her Shelltown home reporting the baby had fallen from a bed. Doctors found Jose was suffering from severe injuries that pointed to Shaken Baby Syndrome, police said.

He died three days later.

Larios denied any wrongdoing and told police that she would cooperate with the investigation, but she fled.

Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $1,000 for information leading to Larios’ arrest. Tipsters can contact authorities anonymously at (888) 580-8477 or
sdcrimestoppers.com.

Kristina Davis • U-T

Police say death of man found in City Heights not a homicide

San Diego

The cause of death for a man found in a City Heights backyard on Sunday remains under investigation, but was not a homicide, San Diego police said Tuesday.

An autopsy was inconclusive, but indicated the 50-year-old man died of natural causes, homicide Lt. Ernie Herbert said.

The Medical Examiner’s Office said further tests are needed to determine the cause of death. His name was not released.

The man’s body was found in the backyard of a home on 44th Street near Redwood Street. Authorities first believed some trauma on his body was suspicious.

Herbert said the man and his family had recently moved out of the home, and he had returned that day to complete some business or cleanup.

Pauline Repard • U-T

Two daughters of Cathedral High coach released from hospital

San Diego

Jayden and Logan Cunningham, the youngest daughters of Cathedral Catholic High School coach Will Cunningham, were released Tuesday from Rady Children’s Hospital, a hospital spokesman said.

Doctors are pleased with the progress Jayden, 12, and Logan, 10, are making, Cathedral spokeswoman Kimberly King said in a statement.

Cunningham’s wife, Alisa, and daughter Taylor, 17, a senior at Cathedral, continue to recover at Sharp Memorial Hospital. The family members were injured March 17 when their minivan was struck by a wrong-way driver on state Route 52 near Santo Road.

Will Cunningham, Cathedral’s boy’s basketball coach, and the couple’s son, Dallas, were in another vehicle nearby and were not injured.

Alisa Cunningham, a math professor at San Diego Christian College in El Cajon, was driving the girls home to Spring Valley when the minivan was hit head-on by a suspected drunken driver.

The other driver, Matthew T. Leonardo of Santee, was killed instantly.

A Mass for Leonardo, 30, was said Tuesday at a church in Webster, N.Y., according to an obituary in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. He was an Eagle Scout and a cum laude graduate of the State University of New York at Oswego, the obituary said.